Rubber Factory

So this is a blues album - to dress it up as anything else would be to miss its point. But that shouldn't put off the casual listener. As well as the more trad-sounding opener, and tracks such as "Stack Shot Billy" (whose guitar wouldn't sound out of place on a John Lee Hooker record), you get the beautiful, mournful "The Lengths" and rockers such as "All Hands Against His Own" and the album's rousing closer, "Till I Get My Way". All in all, proof that the blues can still be relevant today, even if a sizeable proportion of its originators are now no longer with us. --Marc Bloomfield